Martinsburg daily gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1887-1887, 1887-07-15
FRIDAY JULY IS, 1887.
In THE CEMETERIES.

DESCRIPTION or THE crescent
clTYS QUAINT GRAvEYARDS.
Nov Orleans Queer Tombs snd Inscrip.3
tions-Gnarled Oaks and Funeral MOSS.
A Spot where Everything Is Bright
and Clean-DTarble Houses.
elbow viii we get into the cemeteries?'
we ask the friend who has pointed out the
car that will take us to three Of the most
noted. The gates are always open; there
will be no trouble about enteringn The
car starts; she bows and trips down the
street dear little lady in widows dress
to her work in a great office, while we
spin along on oursholiday jaunt to the
place Of the dead. A white wall, gnarled
oaks, with their sad funeral moss, glossy
magnolia trees, with white buds scarcely
showing in their tight calyx wrappings Of
green-that is our first outside view Of
the cemetery. Then, through the open
gate we walk into place, level, green,
moundless. 1t is one of the older ceme-
teries, an avenue of superb oaks conducts
through its center. The spectral moss
rocks back and forth across the shadowy
way. 1t has no rustic, no sound. 1t
seems symbol of an old yet unforgetting
grief; sign of sorrow for the dead
after it has subsidized from tears and sobs.
On the tombs in this cemetery are
carved the old French names, with crosses
or crests; and on projecting hooks fastened
in the cement of the wall hang remem,
brances SO ugly that even loving sentiment
cannot make them other than dissertations
TO the eye; those skeleton Wreaths Of black,
wire strung beads that shine with a
mockery Of mourning, or those chaiky
white ones that seem like clowns in q
tragedy. How grotesque appears human
ity's expression of deepest feeling beside
the gray moss that mOurns overhead and
bright roses that smile from below, where
sweet natures sympathy and consolation
mingle in this place of bereavement SO
tenderly, so tastefully.
Out Of this old cemetery we so to q
neighboring one, dazzling as this one Is
somber. Here the moss, and the beads,
and the foreign names serve TO make one
feel out of this world, in a lonesome place
apart from ones own. But in the neigh
boring spot death is beautiful Joyous
never q cemetery that seemed SO brilliant,
H. &
ancient oak; all the trees are glossy of leaf
and perfumed- magnolias that rustic and
shine. and break out anon In fairest and
widest of flowers. The grass is not
wrinkled with graves; it is smooth and
clean, stretched ont into the sunshine
without flower or headstone. The walks
are wide, NEEDLESS, formed OF finely pull
verified white shells. Along these white
roads, like dwellings along street. are
the family tombs, entirely above ground,
each separate, in its own unfenced YARD q
green.
LIKE SMALL DWELLINGS.
The tombs are eight to ten feet apart
and six or eight from the edge OF the road,
each approached from the roadway by g
narrow marblet footwalk. They are o.
white marble and shaped like small dwell
ings. They are two or three stories ~
height: that is, about ten or twelve feeC
and proportioned neatly; the roof, Of mar
BILE, Il tiirreted, gothic, domed OF pagoda
shaped. The effect Of these marble
houses. close on either side the avenue,
with the little spaces Of green between
them and the wide, unbroken lawn nacK
of them. the tonbs following the curves
81 tfe road, and leaving IN one sheet tne
level Ground between. give an order anu
sense of breathing space such as our own
oravevards can never have. Inc mar PIG
doors AZ the palaces of the dead snut
within n. n the little doofyards are always
flowers of.the choicest pkind, soA that gne
rh;ta road. accumulated BY the Wnl1e
str,,ct,,res At b uniform distance pack
from f. is SO bordered along us eggs
hv these adjoining flower plants as